Posted
by
Soulskill
on Friday August 07, 2009 @11:07PM
from the it's-fashionable-these-days dept.

adewolf tips news that the government of Malaysia is looking into the development of an internet filtering program. According to a Reuters report, "A vibrant Internet culture has contributed to political challenges facing the government, which tightly controls mainstream media and has used sedition laws and imprisonment without trial to prosecute a blogger." The Malaysian government insists that such a filter would only be used to block pornography, though critics of the plan expect it would be wielded as a political tool, censoring websites that are critical of the current administration. "An industry source says the government could impose the filters late this year or in 2010, coinciding with the rollout of a high-speed broadband network run by Telekom Malaysia. Malaysia aims to increase broadband penetration to half of all homes by 2010 as part of its drive to boost economic efficiency."

Seems to me the "common thread" between all 6 of the countries you mention is their governments fear dissent. There are plenty of Muslim and Confucian majority countries that do not censor the Internet.

As much as I'd like to agree with you, it seems to be working out OK (for the moment at least) for China.

The world would be a much nicer place if it were true; but there seems to be room, with the right techniques, to capture a fair slice of the benefits(quite possibly not all; but a decent portion) with comparatively little of the freedom.

It has nothing to do with religion. The bigger the country the stakes for government (of any kind) and the involved individuals are higher, the exposure for them is higher, so the urge for control and filtering comes along with it.

Erm, Germany is doing this too. Every country will do that. With the reason of Porn, Child Porn or whatever. But at the end it is just to protect the aristocracy, the ruling class, the dictators we always vote for.

Of course the government has no problem with the endless movies that depict assassinations of other heads of state, but even a joke about Malaysia and the petulant UMNO children pulling the strings behind the censor's office go haywire. Ironically, in the process, they make Malaysia into more of a joke than ever.

You realize people dealt with this soft of problem before the Internet existed right? People actually... talked to each other... rather than twiting it up or facebooking.

People can talk to the people they know, and the people in their community, sure. But that is very limiting:

No possibility for anonymity

Limited number of viewpoints

Limited access to externally verifiable information

The internet has transformed politics in Malaysia, by bringing people all over the country together based on their shared views rather than based solely on whom they happened to live nearby. It's allowed people to have open, frank discussions that previously they would only be able to have with their closest confidants. It's allowed facts and evidence to be brought to general public attention which would previously have been squelched by the BN-owned mass media.

Of course humans can survive without the internet. But in my mind there is no question that it has enabled a transformative level of communication which we are only beginning to see the full impact of.